


The Guardian Angel Assignment

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, F/M, Latin, POV First Person, can't have a Supernatural fic without Latin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-10-30 17:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10881903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It all started when I was chosen to be Dean Winchester's charge.





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is pitifully short, but it's only the prologue. I'll publish the first proper chapter either later or tomorrow. I've been working today so I want to go over it and finalize it. :)

The Guardian Angel Assignment happened once a year to a small handful of people across the countries of the world. The number of people chosen was different every year. According to legend, in 1690 there had only been one person in the entire United States of America to be assigned a guardian angel. And the history of the guardians themselves was really spotty too; some of the stories about them were told as borderline myths rather than history. But no one really ever knew the full truth, because all the chosen were supposedly sworn to secrecy. The whole thing had a lot to do with the government, and if the government tells you to keep quiet, you damn well better keep quiet.

The public synopsis claimed that you would get a letter with a notice that you’d been chosen and an order to report to the main government building of your zone (or post code or district or whatever). Once there, you’d be taken to a special, top-secret place, and then you’d meet an official who would give you a sealed envelope with a card inside. Then you’d be left alone to open the envelope, read out the name on the card, and meet your guardian angel.

I’d always thought the whole thing was a sham, to be honest. That is, until I myself was chosen.

I stood alone in an empty room with four white walls and an enormous wooden door. I was nervous when I’d first walked through that door, but it was nothing compared to what I felt now. The G-man who’d handed me my letter had wished me his best, told me to take as much time as I needed, and abruptly left. Ten minutes later, I was still in the same position as when the door had shut behind him.

Finally, I gathered enough courage to slit open the envelope. I gently grasped the card inside but didn’t immediately pull it out. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

 _Here goes nothing_ , I thought to myself.

I opened my eyes, pulled out the card, and read the name aloud.

“Dean Winchester.”


	2. Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's that next chapter! Enjoy!

Just after I spoke, the light in the room rapidly intensified from normal office-style lighting to a full-on spotlight of divine presence. I raised my arm to shield my eyes before they burned out of their sockets, and I took a step backward in fear. Once I could tell the light had died down, I slowly lowered my arm and opened my eyes. My breath caught in my throat – there before me stood the most exquisite being I had ever seen.

He wore a dark green shirt under a plaid flannel and a black leather jacket, a pair of denim trousers, and black boots. His hair was dark blond and his eyes sparkled a welcoming green. But what I first beheld were the enormous white wings that billowed out behind him. It was as if they began at his soul and expanded out to the entire world around him.

I stared at them for maybe a little too long before they folded in around their owner, Dean, who I suddenly realized had been shivering the entire time I’d been staring. He’d brought his arms in around himself as well.

I figured I should say something. “Are you cold?” I asked. I mentally smacked myself. _He’s an angel, you ass. Of course he’s not—_

Dean looked at me, surprised. “Yes,” he said.

God, his _voice._ It made me feel completely safe and unfathomably terrified at the same time. “Um...” A long pause went by while I floundered around inside my head. _You’re doing great at this whole speaking thing, idiot._ I shook my head to clear it. “Sorry,” I sighed sheepishly. “I’m not normally this eloquent.”

Dean smiled. “I don’t blame you. This doesn’t seem real, does it?”

I laughed breathlessly. “No, it doesn’t; not at all. Let’s try again, shall we?” I walked closer to him and held out my hand. I told him my name. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

Dean took my hand and shook it. “And I’m Dean Winchester. The honor is mine.” He shivered again and drew his wings in closer. “I’m sorry, I don’t normally get cold like this...”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to apologize. If I leave this room, do you come with me or...how does it work?”

“Well, I’m your guardian angel now,” Dean said. “I’ll be at your side until you send me away.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “Then let’s get out of here and go somewhere where you can get warm.”

I went to the door and turned around just before I opened it. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

The G-man from earlier gave me a wave and a goodbye as Dean and I walked down the hallway and towards the building’s exit. I returned his farewell as I continued walking. As soon as Dean and I were out of the building and going down the street towards my car, I looked at him and said, “Did that dude creep you out as much as he creeped me out?”

Dean laughed. “Not too much. I could probably take him if I needed to.”

 _“Take_ him?” I cackled. “What, you mean, like, in a fight?”

“Sure. I’m a guardian angel. Protecting’s my job. It was my job in life, too.”

“In life?” I almost stopped walking before I remembered I was crossing the road. I asked my question as soon as Dean and I were at my car. “What do you mean, ‘in life?’ You were alive once?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. All guardians were alive before they became guardians.”

I made sure Dean was able to get into his seat (the wings had me worried, but apparently, Dean was somehow able to phase them in and out of existence) before I got in and started the car. “Is it okay if I ask you questions about your life?”

“You can ask if you want to. I’ll just tell you I can’t answer if I can’t.”

“Oh, okay. Well...” _Damn. No wonder the government kept all this quiet._ “What would you be comfortable telling me?”

“If I can’t or don’t want to answer a question, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. Let’s see.” I thought for a moment. “Did you have brothers or sisters when you were alive?”

“I had one younger brother.”

“What was his name?”

Dean paused before answering. “Sam.”

“Is he a guardian too?”

A longer pause went by. “...It’s a long story...”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Thank you,” Dean said quietly.

Glad to be stopped at a red light for the first time in my life, I turned to Dean, smiled at him reassuringly, and gently put my hand on his arm. “You’re welcome,” I told him. “Just because you’re my guardian doesn’t mean I’m your mistress or anything like that. I give you full authority to tell me to shut my damn mouth anytime you want to.”

Dean laughed. “I appreciate that, but I doubt I’ll ever have to tell you that.”

“Oh, you’ll eat those words eventually,” I chuckled, turning back to watch the road as I started driving again. “I tend to talk a lot.”

“That hasn’t ever been a problem for me.”

“What, that you haven’t ever talked too much, or that you don’t mind if others do?”

“Both.”

“Wow. Lucky you.”

Dean and I talked about other random things for the rest of the drive (his birthday was January 24, the same as one of my best college friends, I liked apples, he didn’t, both of us liked classic rock, neither of us liked rap). After I’d pulled into my apartment building’s parking lot and parked my car, Dean said, “So what are your guidelines for me?”

“My what?” I said.

“Guidelines,” Dean repeated. “You know, like, rules. If there’s stuff I’m not supposed to do or something. I was a guardian to a stunt performer once, and he said not to worry if he hollered when he fell or something unless he specifically shouted for me to help him.”

“Am I supposed to give you rules?” I grinned as we went into my building and started up the stairs. “I told you, I’m not your mistress.”

“I mean, you don’t have to, but they are kind of a thing,” Dean said.

I turned back to face him and sighed when I saw him looking a bit confused. “Okay... This is probably the first of many moments like this. I told you before that I thought the whole guardian thing was a myth, right?”

“Yes.”

“That includes me not really knowing about the stuff you’re supposed to do if you get one.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. All I know is the basic story about what happens if you get chosen. You get your notice, you go to City Hall, you get an envelope, you open the envelope, you say _Expecto Patronum,_ and there you go. That’s all I know.”

“How old are you?”

I told him.

“And you’ve never learned _anything_ about having a guardian angel?”

“If I ever did, I don’t remember. Look, I’m sorry,” I said, blushing slightly, “but I really didn’t believe in it until it happened to...” I trailed off as one of my neighbors appeared on the stairs. I greeted him as he passed us. He smiled a hello to me but didn’t seem to see Dean, which I figured meant that only I could see my guardian. When my neighbor was out of earshot, I told Dean, “I’ll explain inside.”

“Okay.”

I led Dean up to my apartment on the third floor and let us both in. It wasn’t much, just your basic one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. Thank goodness I got lucky with low rent; I knew people who paid way more for way less. I closed the door and led Dean into the living room. Both of us took a seat next to each other on the couch before I turned back to Dean to continue. “Okay, so I never really believed in guardians,” I admitted. “Actually, more like I never really _let_ myself believe in them. I didn’t dare put faith in something I didn’t think I’d ever get. I don’t mean to offend, of course I don’t, but I just... I didn’t really do any research, or learn anything about guardian angels or watch any TV shows or read any books or whatever, just because I knew I’d be disappointed as all hell if I never got one. So I eventually convinced myself that they were fake. Mythology. What I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me, right?”

Of all the potential reactions I expected from Dean, empathy was the one I anticipated the least. “You know,” he said, “I once believed the exact same thing.”


	3. Your Best Is Enough

I blinked, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Dean shifted on the couch so he was fully facing me. “Sam was four years younger than me, and our life was...well, let’s just say my family never had time to be a real family. Our mom died when Sam was a baby, and our dad dealt with his grief by becoming a total workaholic until he ended up dying too, when I was twenty-one. So I basically took care of Sammy. We moved more times than I can count, so our learning was pretty sporadic since we constantly switched schools. Every time I started a new school, more so when I was younger, I got asked three questions: what my name was, where I came from, and if I had a guardian angel. Whenever I got asked those questions, I’d go home that day and ask Dad if I had a guardian angel. Each time, he’d say no. I’d ask if Sammy had one, because he was younger, and Dad would say no. After that, I’d usually quit asking, but I was always curious. As the years went on and life got harder, I finally figured out that if Sammy didn’t have a guardian angel, then no one did, because in my eyes, he was the epitome of someone who deserved one. And I never knew anyone who got one, so I was never aware of what it was like to have one. We spent pretty much most of our life knowing nothing about them except the more well-known legends, and we never put much stock in those at all.

“And then we died. And then we realized we were wrong as all hell.”

I chuckled despite myself. “Wow,” I said. “That’s...crazy. Apart from the backstory and the dying, that really is pretty much the exact same thing as me.”

Dean nodded and was about to continue when he shivered hard. He gave a shaky exhale as his wings reappeared, curling in around him so closely that he almost completely disappeared from view.

“Shit, I totally forgot! Let me get you a blanket or something,” I said, jumping up and running into my bedroom. I snatched the quilt at the foot of my bed and brought it back out to the living room, and I held it out to him. I noticed that the top of his head was level with mine despite me standing beside where he sat on the couch. “Here, wrap this around yourself.”

“No, I’m good, but thank you anyway,” Dean said.

I gave him a look of incredulity. “You’re cold. Take this blanket.”

Dean grinned at me. “Thought you said you weren’t my mistress.”

I sighed in exasperation. “I’m not, but I’m also not going to let you get sick, or whatever happens to guardian angels when they get too cold. Take the damn quilt, Dean.”

Dean chuckled. “I really do appreciate the offer, but I’m not that kind of cold,” he explained. “If a guardian gets matched with a charge and they haven’t had one in a while, the new atmosphere can mess with them a little.”

“Meaning you’re not used to Earth yet?”

“Basically.”

“Doesn’t that mean you should get warm because right now it’s cold to you?”

“I didn’t mean the temperature. I meant the soul bond. The bond my soul has with yours. If I haven’t bonded with anyone in a long time, the sudden occurrence of a bond can kinda shock my system a little. Last time this happened was the first time I ever had a charge.”

“You call us ‘charges?’” I asked.

Dean nodded. “The word usually means ‘ward’ or ‘dependent,’ but guardians use it more along the lines of ‘assignment.’ And I hate that, because it makes it sound like I’m just doing this because someone told me to.”

“Aren’t you?”

A pause went by while Dean looked at me for a long moment. “No,” he eventually said. “I was chosen to be a guardian just like you were chosen to be a charge. I’m not just gonna half-ass it like some exam.”

I grinned. “Then neither will I.” I held out my hand. “I promise to learn as much of what I never learned about guardians as I possibly can.”

“And I promise in return to protect you until for whatever reason I need no longer,” Dean said, reaching out from his wing cocoon and shaking my hand.

“Deal.”

“Deal.” Dean slid his arm back into the warmth of his wings and looked around my apartment. “So this place is all yours?”

“Well, it came furnished with the basics when I rented it, but there are some things that I brought with me. Like that.” I pointed to the corner where I kept my violin case. “That’s my violin. I’ve had it since high school.”

“Will you play for me sometime?” Dean asked.

I could see a sparkle of fascination in his eyes. “I can play for you now if you like,” I said. “Unless you’ve got somewhere to be.”

Dean laughed. “Nope, not for a while. Unless you’ve got plans.”

“Nope,” I giggled in reply. “Here, I’ll play something for you.” I went over and took out my violin, and made sure it was tuned before placing the bow upon the strings. “What sort of song would you like to hear?”

“Surprise me.”

“Okay.” I thought for a moment. “Do you know any Led Zeppelin?”

Dean snorted. “Does a bear crap in the woods? Zep’s my go-to!”

I laughed. “Okay, you’ll know this one, then.” I proceeded to play “Stairway to Heaven” for him. As I played, his wings slowly went back to their normal position, his body becoming completely visible. I watched a succession of emotions cross his face: first amazement, then enjoyment, then nostalgia, and then what looked like a mix between the nostalgia and the painful kind of sadness.

When I finished, he applauded enthusiastically. “That was awesome!”

“Thanks!” I took a mock bow. “I’m glad you liked it.”

“What else can you play?”

“I’ve been playing for years; I can do loads of songs. I’m not at that peak level where I can do ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia,’ though. I’m still practicing that one.”

“Show me!” Dean said.

He was so eager that I decided to play what I knew for him. Admittedly, I sucked at that song, because I’d only started practicing it two weeks before. It was basically the song that every violin player has to learn, and either constantly aspires to play or hates being asked to play every time they go to a party. I was of the former sort, and wanted to learn it. Now that I knew Dean liked it, my desire to learn it strengthened, and even more so as I struggled through what I knew for him. “Ugh, that was awful,” I said when I stopped, blushing deeply. “Sorry.”

“No, no, that was great!” Dean reassured me. “I had an uncle who’d always tell me that when you’re learning something, you just gotta keep going until you get it, and each time you try, your best is enough.”

“‘Your best is enough,’” I repeated slowly. “I like that. Do you mind if I draw that and put it up on the wall?”

“Draw it?” Dean cocked his head like a confused dog. “What do you mean, draw it?”

“Calligraphy,” I told him. “Basically letter art. Fancy writing.”

“Oh.” His eyes lit up in understanding. “Yeah, you can totally do that. Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“On one condition,” Dean added with a grin. “You can do it as soon as you can play the first part of ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia.’ The violin solo right before the first verse.”

I exhaled. “That’s a tall order, but I think I’ll take it.”

“Awesome!” Dean pumped the air with an eager laugh.


	4. Voices from Above

Dean and I talked about music for a little while before I caught sight of the clock on the wall. “Holy crap, it’s so late! Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess. I should get to bed.”

“You have work in the morning?” Dean asked.

“Yes, but not really,” I told him. “I work mostly from home. I’m an author. Well, kind of. I wrote a small series for kids a few years back, which got me the money I needed for the down payment on this place. I started a larger, longer novel, but scrapped it after I lost inspiration. Right now, I live off internet commissions for my calligraphy and a part-time job at the local coffee shop.”

Dean raised an eyebrow, which made me laugh. “I know, right? My life sounds like a book. I’m holding out for proper inspiration to fall on me sometime soon.”

“Well, you just found out guardian angels are real, right?” Dean grinned. “I’d be a pretty good source of inspiration, if I do say so myself.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit conceited?”

“Who, me?”

I frowned playfully before standing up and stretching. “Do guardian angels sleep?”

“Not exactly. I guess you could call it ‘recharging,’” Dean explained, standing up beside me. “We kinda just shut down for a little while. Like a power nap. And we only have to do it, like, once every week or so.”

“Lucky you,” I said. “I don’t have a guest room, though. Will that be a problem?”

“Nah, the couch will be fine for me. I’ve slept on pavement before.”

“Yikes. Well, in that case, I’m gonna go get changed and then hit the sack. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“You bet.” Dean took his leather jacket off and laid it on the back of the recliner, and then toed off his boots and placed them at the foot of the couch. He laid down on the couch and stretched out, sighing comfortably. “When I wake up, I might take a walk around and check out the place, so don’t worry if you hear any noise unless it sounds like it isn’t me, okay?”

I laughed. “Okay, Dean. Goodnight.”

“’Night.”

I put on my pajamas and climbed into bed, half-wondering if I was going to wake up the next morning to an empty apartment and the memory of a dream.

* * *

I woke up several hours later to a strange noise, just as Dean had predicted. I thought about ignoring it and going back to sleep before I heard the noise again.

“Mmmrph...”

Yep, definitely a voice. I felt my stomach clench in fear; I’d been robbed once before and it hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience. I decided to wait until I heard it again and then judge whether I should panic. Sure enough, a few moments later, I heard the voice for a third time. And this time, I knew whose it was.

_“Sammy!”_

Dean. I leapt out of bed and ran to the living room. Dean was right on the couch where I’d left him, but he was shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm and his eyes were squeezed shut so tightly that I knew he was having some kind of nightmare.

“Dean!” I shouted, running over and kneeling beside the couch. “Dean, wake up!”

“No!” Dean moaned. “No... _Sam, NO!”_

“Dean!” I yelled again. I put my hands on his shoulders and shook him as hard as I could.

Suddenly, Dean gasped and his eyes flew open. He sat straight up on the couch, his wings billowing out from behind him to their fullest extent. It startled me so badly that I fell backwards onto the floor, but I got right back up and went to stand right in Dean’s line of sight so he would see me. “Dean, it’s okay, you’re okay! It’s just me!”

Dean’s chest heaved as he breathed, and he blinked as he came back to reality. As he did so, his wings contracted but didn’t disappear. “Holy crap,” he finally mumbled hoarsely. “I’m, uh... I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” I told him. I sat beside him, his right wing nestled behind my back. “Nightmare?”

“More like a flashback,” he said quietly.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I do not.” Dean’s voice was nervous but firm.

I nodded. “Okay. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Dean sighed a forceful exhale and put his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. He was still shaking, not as much as before, but still significantly. I hesitated before putting my hand on his shoulder. “You sure you don’t want that blanket?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Dean peeked briefly out of his hands and smiled over at me, but I could tell it was for my benefit rather than his. I let a long moment of silence go by, just sitting there next to him as the shaking continued.

Eventually, Dean started to mumble softly, moving his hands up to cover just his eyes so his mouth would be free. _“Frater, audi me. Ego sum perdita...et enervis... Quod oportet faciam?”_

“Are you talking to me, Dean?” I asked him.

He didn’t seem to hear me. _“Non intelligi...”_

My stomach nearly dropped through the floor when I heard a disembodied voice seemingly answer Dean. _“Mementa, fortis est vita.”_

I was just starting to freak out about whose voice that could have been (let alone where it could have come from) when Dean took a deep breath, rubbed his face, and looked over at me. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been so long since the last time I was a guardian that I’d forgotten a lot about the way it all works down here.”

“Including how you have to sleep and dream sometimes?” I asked.

“Exactly.” Dean chuckled shamefacedly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t do so great with dreams.”

 _“Ipse est verum.”_ I jumped a bit when a different disembodied voice spoke.

 _“Tace,”_ Dean muttered, glancing pointedly up at the ceiling.

“Why are there voices in my apartment?” I demanded nervously, also looking upwards.

“You can hear it?” Dean looked at me with surprise on his face.

“Of course I can hear it!” I said. “Who is it?”

“Well, first I was talking to Benny. Naomi was the one who jumped in at the end there. Naomi's kinda snippy." He scowled again at the ceiling.

“It’s like the whole comms thing in Marvel movies.” I grinned. “That’s so cool.” I yawned and stood up. “Are you gonna be okay if I go back to sleep?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, I’m gonna go check out the place.”

“Okay. You can wake me if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“No problem. Goodnight, Dean.”

“Goodnight.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

A/N: It's been a while since I used Latin, so if I didn't get these right, please feel free to let me know!

**Translations:**

1\. _Frater, audi me. Ego sum perdita...et enervis... Quod oportet faciam?_ ~ Brother, listen to me. I am lost...and weak... What should I do?  
2\. _Non intelligi..._ ~ I don’t understand...  
3\. _Mementa, fortis est vita._ ~ Remember, life is strong.  
4\. _Ipse est verum._ ~ He’s right. (Lit.: He is correct.)  
5\. _Tace._ ~ Shut up.


	5. The Whole Story

As the days continued, Dean started to open up to me more, and I got to know him a little better. His younger brother, Sam, had been a student at Stanford University, pursuing a law degree. Dean had fully supported Sam in his decision to attend university, but had never really wanted to obtain any sort of higher education for himself. Instead, Dean had worked for the car repair business his uncle owned. He’d explained to me that his boss, Bobby Singer, was not his uncle by blood, but had been a longtime friend of his father’s and often liked to say, “Family don’t end in blood,” which made Dean all the happier to designate Bobby as his uncle.

“Sounds like a good man,” I’d said.

“You bet he was,” Dean had answered.

A few days after telling me about Bobby, Dean told me about his friend Benny, who had been the first voice I’d heard coming from my ceiling (turns out it’d come from wherever the guardian angels called home base – Heaven? I honestly wasn’t sure). Benny had been the first angel to befriend him when he’d become a guardian. Understandably, Dean had been a bit lost when he’d started, because of his lack of belief in guardians during his lifetime. But Benny had brought him up to speed and acted as a sort of mentor from Dean’s first day up until he was assigned his first charge.

“Benny’s a great guy, a good friend,” Dean had told me, grinning, “but he’s a real piece of work sometimes.”

_“Quod fuit benigna,”_ that voice from the ceiling had said sassily.

_“Tace, stulte!”_ Dean had retorted, laughing.

I’d giggled. “I don’t speak Latin, but judging by your expression, Benny sounds funny,” I’d said.

“Yeah, he sure is.”

Finally, nearly a month after we’d met, I asked Dean to tell me about his family, and he obliged. Dean’s mother’s name was Mary, and his father’s name was John. Mary had been killed in a fire and John in a car crash with a drunk driver. Dean said the latter incident had caused him and Sam to completely swear off alcohol. I said I admired their strength.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen Sam?” Deep down, I felt like I shouldn’t ask this question, but I did anyway, because I wanted to know.

But, as I’d expected, Dean paused for a moment before saying, “Uh...pass.”

“Okay. Perfectly fine,” I assured him.

“Thanks.”

That night, I said goodnight to Dean as I usually did. It was one of the nights that Dean would sleep as well, having slept only once since the first night when he’d had his flashback. I wondered whether it would happen again, considering that the only two times he and I had mentioned Sam had been the first night, when I’d asked him if he’d had brothers or sisters in life, and earlier that night, when I’d asked him the question he’d passed on.

I didn’t have long to wait until I found out whether I was right – only two hours or so after I’d fallen asleep, I woke up to the sound of crying. I tensed slightly; I didn’t know if Dean would be comfortable with me seeing him cry, as he seemed like such a strong individual. I didn’t even know guardian angels _could_ cry. But I wanted to make sure he was okay, so I went out to the living room. I found him sitting up but hunched over, his wings shielding his body but shaking as the sound of tears emanated from within.

I paused in the threshold of my bedroom door. “Dean?” I said softly.

Dean’s wings parted and he looked up at me. His cheeks were wet with tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, his voice sounding forcefully strong but hoarse from crying.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. I moved as if to go and sit beside him, but paused. “Do—do you want me to leave you alone?”

Dean let a long pause go by before shaking his head no. I went to sit next to him on the couch. He didn’t move his wing, so my view of him was obscured by the magnificent white entity. I hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked.

Dean was silent.

“I know it’s hard, but I’ve always found talking about what bothers me helps me feel better,” I continued. “If you don’t want to, though, I’ll respect that.”

Dean sniffled, his wings flapping backwards slightly as he stretched his arms and rubbed the tears from his cheeks. _“Futuo,”_ he mumbled.

_“Custodite animas cum lingua tua,”_ a voice from the ceiling said in a reprimanding tone. It was the second one from the last time.

“Naomi, _testor ego...”_ Dean’s wings retracted just in time for me to see a furious expression on his face as he looked up to the ceiling. He moved as if to rise to his feet.

“Hey, hey, Dean, easy,” I said soothingly, standing up in front of him. As he sat back down, I took his hands in mine and put them on his knees, and I made sure to hold his gaze. “Look at me. You know you’re okay here, right??”

Dean nodded.

“Do you want to talk about what made you cry? Did you have another ni—I mean flashback?”

Dean looked away. It was a long time before he finally spoke, his voice trembling ever so slightly in his effort to remain strong.

“It’s my fault Sammy died.”

My stomach clenched, realizing that he was finally going to talk about what had happened to his brother. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true,” Dean said. He stood up and strode over to look out the window. I loved that window. It ran the whole length of the living room, from the wall that separated the living room and my bedroom to the arch in the opposite wall that led to the kitchen. And the view was magnificent; you could almost see my whole city.

“I got sick,” Dean said. I stood up and moved a bit closer so I could hear him, but I didn’t go to stand right next to him, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

“I went to bed feeling perfectly fine,” Dean continued, “but next thing I knew I woke up the next morning with pain all over and a freakin’ crazy fever. I can’t remember how high it was, but I think I remember the doctor saying it was the highest fever a human can have before they drop dead. I don’t remember much, since I was pretty out of it. Like I forget what the doctor said I had. Maybe I got told what it was when I died, but I either don’t remember or made myself forget.”

As Dean spoke, I moved ever so slowly to stand next to him, and watched his reflection in the window.

“I never, _ever_ got sick when I was alive,” Dean chuckled humorlessly. “Like, maybe I had colds here and there when I was a kid, but that was _it._ Sammy was always the sick one; he caught everything that went around, from colds to chicken pox to even scarlet fever at one point. I thought that didn’t exist anymore, like smallpox. Anyway, Sammy getting sick always worked out great, ‘cause Dad was always working, and I could take care of Sammy without getting sick too and Dad having to take off... And I told Sammy not to stay overnight in the hospital with me, or to stay too long during visiting hours, or anything like that since I knew that he’d catch whatever I had. And when he did, he came to stay in that hospital with me. I begged the nurses to put us in the same room, and well, heh, the nurses really liked me so they did what I asked.” Dean grinned at that, but I could see that there was no happiness behind it. “And then he got worse, and then...”

Dean’s voice finally broke and trailed off, which clued me in to the fact that this was the part in his story when his brother died. I myself had experienced loss before, but I suddenly found myself without words of comfort.

I finally took his hand and said his name quietly.

Dean’s wings fluttered behind him as if to conceal him from me, to conceal his grief so I wouldn’t witness it. _“Ego sum ita enervis... Ego est odio!”_ he barked. He let go of my hand, whirled around, and strode a few steps away from the window.

Out of nowhere, a male voice—a new voice, one I hadn’t heard before—shouted, _“Mitescere!”_

Dean froze.

_“Take a breather, brother.”_

Dean and I looked toward the ceiling, equally startled. “Good to know someone upstairs speaks English,” I said softly.

_“Te rediter in domum?”_ Dean asked quizzically.

_“Dormis,”_ the voice chuckled. _“No way. I’m just back for a little hi-bye and then I’m dippin’ out. Charges wait for no guardian. Hey, you got one too! Hi there!”_

I looked at Dean. “Is he talking to me?” I mumbled.

“That’s Gabriel,” Dean told me. “He’s another guardian. It’s okay, you can say hi.”

“Um...hi, Gabriel.”

Gabriel laughed. _“You’re cute. Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Usually. Anyway, Dean-o, just wanted to remind you of that little talk we had when last we met?”_

Dean grumbled. “Yeah, yeah, I remember. I get it.”

_“Good. Well, maybe we’ll run into each other sometime. Hang in there, yeah?”_

Dean nodded. “Will do.”

_“Okey dokey. Bye, Dean’s charge!”_

“Bye,” I called.

“So long, Gabe,” Dean echoed.

When Gabriel didn’t reply, I giggled. “That was definitely high up on my list of ‘weirdest phone calls.’”

Dean laughed. “Yeah, we communicate that way unless the situation isn’t proper or safe for it or something. I probably should have warned you about that.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s probably one more thing about guardians I should have known. I’m used to that now.” I took a deep breath. “Are you, um... Are you okay now? What did Gabriel mean by ‘little talk?’ Unless that’s private,” I added.

“Not really private,” Dean said. “Just, uh... Last time I tried to tell somebody the story I just told you, I may or may not have briefly turned into an angry three-year-old and screamed a lot and thrown some stuff.”

“I don’t blame you,” I told him. “You lost your brother. You have every right to be upset about it.”

“That wasn’t what I was really mad about, though.” Dean’s confession made his cheeks redden in shame, and he turned his gaze away and went back to the window. “I hate being weak,” he admitted. “My dad always considered crying and stuff to be weakness, and he used to yell at me and Sammy for it sometimes. Probably because he was some sort of emotionless robot. But I used to beat up on myself for crying, if I ever did.”

“Well, you don’t have to anymore, because I couldn’t care less if you cried so much you drowned us both,” I said, going to stand beside him and taking his hand. “You’re more than welcome to cry or vent or anything. Remember how you told me your uncle said, ‘your best is enough’?”

“Yeah, I do.”

 “If your best means that you have to give up for a little while, cry, vent, freak out, and then get back up and try again,” I told him, “then that’s perfectly fine with me.”

Dean looked at me with a small smile. “You mean that?”

“Cross my heart.”

Dean chuckled quietly and looked back out the window, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “You’re all right.”

“You’re not too bad yourself.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Translations:**  
1\. _Quod fuit benigna._ ~ That wasn’t nice. (Lit.: That was not friendly.)  
2\. _Tace, stulte!_ ~ Shut up, idiot!  
3\. _Futuo._ ~ Fuck.  
4\. _Custodite animas cum lingua tua._ ~ Watch your language.  
5\. _Testor ego._ ~ I swear. (A/N: Pun intended.)  
6\. _Ego sum ita enervis... Ego est odio!_ ~ I am so weak... I hate it!  
7\. _Mitescere!_ ~ Calm down!  
8\. _Te rediter in domum?_ ~ You back home?)  
9\. _Dormis._ ~ Dream on. (Lit.: You’re dreaming.)


End file.
